St Petersburg

We have been here in St Petersburg for over a week now. Some boats have been moving from one side of the marina (east) to the other side (west) because of the weather the night we made our Gulf crossing. A 43' Cantana Cat pulled the cleats out of the dock. Another boat that moved next door to us, told us they were at a 18 degree heel for over 3 hours that night. There is a cement wall between the marina and the cut that opens into Tampa Bay. So when the wind blows from the east we do get some wave action in the marina. Most of the slips head north/south so we all roll side to side.

We met some boaters out by the pool and Karen mentioned we had not seen any Manatee yet. A few minutes after one of the ladies left the pool for her boat she came back to get us. There were two Manatee right by the docks coming up for air just hanging out. No pics, we didn't have our camera or even have our shoes on.

There are quite a few Tarpon tailing around in the marina.

We have been exploring St Pete on our bikes. We went to a hotel built in 1925 named the Venoy. We rode our bikes 4 miles to Lowe's and stopped half way back for lunch at Panera Bread.

A tropical storm passed south of us but we did not really notice from the weather. It has rained for about half a hour or so the past few evenings. They obviously don't know what 80 percent chance of rain is here. That's like 8 solid hours of rain fall in Houston.

We have cable TV in this marina. I do not think the cable has ever been connected on board Summertime before. We have 2 connectors on the outside of the boat on each side. Best I can tell they are wired together not to the TV outlet. Those Taiwanese that built the boat probably did not have cable TV.

We rode the trolley around and listened to a very interesting tour from the driver. The trolley is only 25 cents. There are 2.5 million people in the Bay Area! We see a lot of homeless people living in the parks and on the streets. We met one last night at the marina bar and restaurant. He had just bought an Irwin 27' sailboat and was planning to living on it. I asked him where he got the money and he told me he had received a school grant from the government for $5,500 that day and he used it to buy the boat the same day. He said he was teaching the other homeless people how to get the free government money also. But he said they all do crack and they would just smoke it all up. Our tax dollars at work.

I got my dive gear out and changed my own zincs out for the first time underwater. The visibility was good and I saw a few fish swimming around a sandy bottom.